Two quotations from Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, by Stephen M. Barr, a cosmologist and theoretical particle physicist who recently retired from the University of Delaware: “Science has given us new eyes that allow us to see down to the deeper roots of the world’s structure, and there all we see is order and symmetry of pristine mathematical purity.” “The universe looks far more orderly to us now than it did to the ancients who appealed to... Read more
Muslims believe that the Qur’an as they have it today is an actual transcript from a heavenly volume known as the “Preserved Tablet,” or the “Mother of the Book.”[1] They believe that Muhammad did not write it and that it contains no admixture of his own personality or individual idiosyncrasies. He was merely the pipeline, as it were, the conduit through whom God’s revelation came. Given such an understanding, we are not surprised to learn that, for virtually... Read more
This heads-up appeared a short while ago on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “Jackson Article Preview — Did Joseph Smith Use Adam Clarke?” And this appeared today, as well: Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 34 “Remember the Lord” (Helaman 7-12) This Interpreter Radio Roundtable (for Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 34, “Remember the Lord,” on Helaman 7-12) featured Steve Densley, Matthew Bowen, Mark Johnson, and J. Ward Moody. The roundtable was extracted, shorn of commercial... Read more
Scientism, in at least some of its manifestations, is the close cousin or sibling if not indeed altogether the Doppelgänger of the once-fashionable form(s) of philosophy known as logical positivism, logical empiricism, and/or neopositivism. Very popular, especially in Europe, in the 1920s and 1930s, logical positivism, as I’ll call it here, argued that only statements that can be verified through empirical observation can be regarded as “significant” or genuinely meaningful. Statements regarding “unobservables” — and there is a vast... Read more
These were astonishing conquests, rapid and seemingly without end, and it was not only the ancient Christians who saw them as fortunate (indeed, perhaps even as God-ordained). Parley P. Pratt was enthused about them as well. “Now,” he said, if we take Mahometanism during those dark ages, and the corruptions that are so universally prevalent over the earth, and the idolatrous systems of religion, falsely called Christianity, and weigh them in a balance; with all my education in... Read more
If not entirely surprising, still quite important to note: “Study of more than 100 modifiable factors for depression identifies social connection as the strongest protective factor” With that topic in mind, I append three passages (in my rough translations) from Christiane Tietz, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologe im Widerstand (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 2013), a book that I bought during a visit to the former Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, near Weimar, a few years back. (I had... Read more
These new items went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation as part of a volume of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “To Seek the Law of the Lord” James R. Rasband, Paul Y. Hoskisson and Daniel C. Peterson Abstract: This prefatory material to the festschrift for John W. Welch gives an overview of his exceptional life, full of variety and intensity. As James R. Rasband writes: “His candle burns bright whatever the project.” Hoskisson... Read more
Abu Bakr was the first man to bear the title of caliph, to serve as the political successor of the Prophet.[1] He lived for only two more years beyond the death of Muhammad, but it was during his rule that a series of small campaigns known as the “Wars of the Ridda” reestablished the control of the new Islamic “state” over the Arabian peninsula. Just before his death in 634 A.D., Abu Bakr nominated Umar as his successor. Under... Read more
There are many who claim that science and religious belief are entirely incompatible. They allege that the former represents rationality while the latter embodies an unreasoning gullibility that is the antithesis of science. Some of them are openly contemptuous of anybody who suggests otherwise. One of those who would have disagreed, however, was the late Revd. Canon Arthur Peacocke MBE (d. 2006), University Lecturer in Biochemistry in the University of Oxford, sometime Director of Studies in Theology at... Read more
I share four sabbath-appropriate quotations, suitable as follow-ups to my previous post in this epic two-part series, from Nathan Busenitz, Reasons We Believe: 50 Lines of Evidence That Confirm the Christian Faith (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008). First, from the Evangelical Protestant philosopher Gary Habermas and the New Testament scholar Mike Licona: When we include both biblical and nonbiblical sources, “what we have concerning Jesus actually is impressive. . . . In all, at least forty-two authors, nine... Read more
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